Goldman Sachs has elevated Gowri Sekar, a managing director and technology fellow at the storied US investment bank, as its first woman partner in India.

Sekar is the global head of product data engineering and Asia-Pacific lead for AI strategy for data engineering. She has been with the firm for 20 years and has held a variety of roles across data and controllers engineering in multiple global offices, including New York. She joined the firm as an analyst in Bengaluru.

Besides Sekar, Goldman also promoted Ashoke Sharma as the other partner in India. Sharma is the global head of operations engineering within Global Banking and Markets (GBM) Public and head of GBM Engineering in India. He has been with the firm for 12 years.

The bank promoted 109 people globally who will become partners from January 1, including 14 Indians. This is the largest class of partners announced since 2010, up from 95 partners in 2024.

“The Partner Class of 2026 reflects our commitment to elevating leaders who have distinguished themselves through their differentiated impact on our global franchise and ongoing focus on managing risk effectively, while consistently embodying our core values and actively investing in the growth and development of our people,” chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) David Solomon said in a statement.

Of the 109, 62 were from the Americas and 20 from Asia.

Goldman has more than 8,000 employees in India across Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, with about 45 per cent of them being engineers. Last year, it promoted 49 people from India as managing directors of the investment bank, its highest-ever number in the country, underlining the importance of its technology centre in Bengaluru in the bank’s ecosystem.